


Tony Stark - Origins

by narukyuu



Series: Dragon Age Assemble! [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Age Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Dragon age assemble!, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Kid Tony Stark, M/M, Mage Tony, Male Friendship, One-Sided Attraction, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Rhodey, Puppy Love, Rating May Change, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, alternative universe, grey warden steve, templar rhodey, tiny tony, wise-ass tony stark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-15 02:13:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4589139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narukyuu/pseuds/narukyuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At age thirteen, Anthony Stark is the smartest and most talented Mage at the Circle.<br/>he is also a bit of a wise-ass about it.<br/>Trouble ensues, and he finds himself hiding in a hidden room in the basements. what he finds there will change his life forever.</p>
<p>A story following Tony Stark in the Circle of Magi through his teenage years, up until the Dragon age version of his comics origin story comes about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I can’t just stop being smart.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi There!  
> so, first of all  
> this fanfic is for http://dassemble.tumblr.com/ . a Blog dedicated to an AU in which the Avengers (and also, Deadpool) are characters in the Dragon age universe. most of their origins and characters are the same as the comics, we try to stay as loyal as possible to who and what those characters are while also remaining loyal to the world in which they exist.
> 
> Because making our favorite characters suffer in all possible universes is so much FUN. haha.  
> (Marvel agrees with me. Bioware too, probably.)
> 
> anyway, I would love to see you there. ask me questions and share your headcanons with me!  
> _____  
> this story is planned to be 4-5 chapters, after that I will move on to another character, if you'd like to read about your fave, simply say so! I would also like to hear your headcanons about your faves. if you write stories about them, even better!  
> that's it for now, enjoy the story!

Anthony Stark slammed the heavy door behind him. A minute or two after that, he collapsed.

The floor was cold, he could feel frost climbing, slithering slowly up his spine even through his thick apprentice robes. His warm heavy breathes turned to fumes as they hit the cold air and evaporated quickly. That was not normal.

He had no time to worry about it, however.

The heavy door dimmed most of the sounds coming from the outer hall, so hearing the Templars walking and shouting his name, cackling it like hungry hyenas on a scavengers hunt was not a good sign, it was actually very very bad. It meant they had his phylactery, it meant they knew where he was. Any moment now the door would slam open—

The voices dimmed again. Anthony sighed in relief and wiped a drop of cold sweat, swiping back the wet bangs of messy black hair that stuck to his forehead.

He allowed himself a few more minutes, curled on the floor in a fetal position and breathing so heavily it could be considered panting, listening to the door while attempting to stay very quiet, and his body refused to relax while the Templars were still out there, still looking for him to administer what-ever punishment they had in mind.

And on what charge, really? The boy’s hand moved slowly to his cheek, where the burn of a slap still remained from earlier. Bitterness found residence in the back of his throat and tears on the brim of his eyes. There was no reason for him to be chased around the corridors and halls of the tower like a criminal, he did not start that fight with the other mage, and he did nothing that would cause this kind of treatment.

It wasn’t his fault that he was better than the other apprentices. Better than some of the resident and senior mages, too. It wasn’t his fault if they were jealous enough to start fights everyone knew they would lose – so how come it was always him who got the punishments?

It wouldn’t have happened if Rhodey was there to keep an eye on him and help him stay out of trouble. He bitterly thought of the young Templar – only four or five years older than him, raised and trained in the chantry inside the tower for the purpose of hunting and moderating mages for his entire life, and Anthony’s best- if not only- friend in the world.

He wouldn’t have let the other Templars treat him unfairly, he probably wouldn’t have let it go this far in the first place. But James Rhodes was not around, he was away on a mission to kill an abomination or hunt apostates – who actually cares really – and Anthony Stark was left alone to fend for himself in a place where he was resented like the lowliest of scums.

While the unpleasant thoughts continued to clutter his mind, the coldness of the room started to become almost unbearable, and the dark haired teen finally noticed that he was shivering under his robes, his teeth clattering noisily. Antivan nights were cooler than those of other nations, even in summer, but this was not a normal chill he was feeling, not by a long shot. He could actually feel the bits of magic, pieces of the fade scattered in the air of the little room he found himself in during his escape.

After a momentary consideration of the risks - being attacked by a demon being the most obvious, his curiosity won over caution. It’s not like he had anywhere else to go while the Templars were so pissed at him, going out of the room right now meant being punished and Anthony did not like that idea one bit, so investigating the source of this unnatural frostiness instead of sitting around, freezing and panicking over every single sound that slip through the heavy door was actually the better choice, wasn’t it?

The cold seemed to get worse the longer he lingered in that same spot, and despite the silence surrounding him calm was very much not a feeling he was experiencing at the moment. Fidgety, he got up to his feet, his hands finding purchase against the heavy door as he pushed himself up. He was aching all over from the brawl and then some more from the manhandling he endured from the Templars. The coldness was not making it any better.

Other than a very thin strip of light coming from under the door, the room was completely dark, and it would be no surprise at all to find it infested by giant spiders or something of that likeness. Tony whispered a spell under his breath, and waited but a second as one manic ball of light manifested and started dancing around his head, jumping playfully in front of his face while whispering words of a long forgotten language in a chorus of numerous different voices. The wisp was enough to illuminate his way as well as keep him company as he explored the room, which was now revealed by the faint light to be quite large and divided into several sections.

“Stop that noise… dummy.” He whispered and chuckled to himself as the wisp made a short whine at him, “come on, I don’t want the Templars to find me, okay?” the little orb jumped once in front of his face and then stilled, the whispers fading along with his restless behavior. “That’s a good boy. Come on, let’s go.”

The wisp levitated a few meters ahead of him, moving at a steady pace if a bit jumpy. He was walking slowly, exploring the bleak corners of the room. There wasn’t much there really, some dusty bottles with faded labels, filled with a substance that reeked of alcohol, elfroot and decay. Anthony decided it would probably be unwise to drink from them, but slipped one of the smaller ones into an inner pocket in his robe all the same. No harm could come of studying it.

Other contents of the frosty rooms included bits and pieces of armor with an insignia resembling a bird on them, one very rusty sword, and one dirty and faded, thin book. Wondering if perhaps the book would hold answers for the quirky contents of the room, contents that should have been in an armory – or maybe a heap of garbage but definitely not in a Circle – he sat down and worked the latch on the book open with gentle hands, trying not to disturb the delicate yet decaying leather binding the old, dry pages. The little orb of light danced restlessly about his head as the boy flipped through the pages slowly, finding not words in it – but drawings. Simple, yet elaborate sketches of landscape and still life, felines, Nugs and livestock, once in a while there would be a faded sketch of the same beautiful face repeated through the book, other times – the same insignia he saw on the armor pieces before.

The more pages he looked through, the darker and disturbing the pictures became. Creatures of nightmare began adorning the pages, deterioration and darkness marking them, draconic and demonic features making them as horrendous as a creature could possibly be.

As he stared at the disturbing imagery, an increasing feeling of uneasiness was starting to creep through his skin, and the cold was suddenly even worse than before. He couldn’t be sure what was making him shake worse – the cold or the sketches from nightmare, Anthony did not have much time to ponder at his thoughts, however, as suddenly his wisp began running amok, jumping around the room and shrieking excitedly. Then, without stopping his movements for even a split second, the wisp floated away through the room and disappeared behind a hidden wall – Leaving the stunned boy who barely managed to drop the book and get up to his feet stranded in the darkness.

“Dummy! You… Ugh. Come back!”the boy squinted his eyes, trying to find the light or at least get his eyes readjusted to the complete blackness of the room, when unsuccessful he began tramping through toward the general location wherein his wisp had disappeared.

“Stupid… next time I’ll summon an actually useful spirit.” Anthony muttered, stumbling on top of what could be another piece of the broken armor he encountered earlier. He could hear the wisp whispering softly and followed the noise, his eyes blinking in another attempt to find a bit of light – after turning a corner he found more than that.

Well, first he was nearly blinded when the wisp rushed into his face excitedly and blabbered at him, its light a lot stronger than it’d been when he summoned him, its magic a lot more potent. Anthony waved the excitable orb away and rubbed his aching eyes before raising them to look at the source of Dummy’s excitement.

He saw at once what it’s been about.

The statue was large. The man it depicted broad shouldered, tall and… well, handsome, for a lack of a better word. Anthony didn’t think it fit to call someone this big pretty. He looked… looked like a knight – a hero like those his mother told about in her stories… not like the Templars, obviously. Nothing like them. They might have worn armor, but they were not heroes of legend.

He took a step forward, reluctant, a bit scared – but more curious, as its always been. The man eyes were downcast, looking at the large shield he held firmly under his hands. The insignia on it similar to the ones Anthony had seen on the scattered armor and the sketches. It was covered with rime up to where the stone man’s hands touched it. Around the statue, from its base, huge frosty crystals were enveloping the thick body of stone in big and small spikes, like thorns on a flower, they were beautiful and looked most vicious. It also seemed like they were the source of the really unbearable cold in the room. They weren’t part of the sculpture, most obviously not made of the same smooth material – marble, perhaps- as the figure, but of what looked like ice. Ice that had not melted for as long as the statue had been in that room.

Definitely magic ice. And not the normal type either – even that kind tended to dissolve after a while. This was an entirely new thing, or old – if the state of the sculpture was any clue. It must have been there for years. Thoughts rushed through his head as he took in the sight and information, he wondered if the grand enchanter knew about this thing, and if he did – would he be mad that Anthony found it? If it was kept down here then it must have been dangerous…

But also, so very interesting.

He bit his lower lip as he took another step forward, wondering what would happen if he touched the statue, what would happen if he touched the crystals? He wouldn’t know if he wouldn’t try.

“Stark?” the familiar voice made Anthony stop at once, Dummy blinked out of existence and left him in darkness only disturbed by the ripples of soft light emitted through the icy crystals. “Anthony, make a sound if you’re there. Come on.” Rhodey’s voice sounded concerned, but also somewhat infuriated, he didn’t like getting Anthony out of trouble just as much as Anthony apparently liked getting into them. For a moment he considered remaining quiet, not letting the Templar know his position will allow him to keep investigating his discovery… but it also risked what little trust he managed to obtain from him until then.

“Anthony? Come on, I know you’re here somewhere. Don’t make me come inside.” his voice was nearly there, what would happen if he saw the statue? He will have to tell his superior, they will tell the grand enchanter, and Anthony would be in even more trouble than he was now.

“What, afraid of the dark James?” He quipped before stepping out, finding the shimmering of the Templar’s armor in the room, light reflected on it from the entrance – no longer shut away by the heavy door. Rhodey sighed at him.

“Yeah, sure. You got it, Tones.” He said the nickname with not a bit of affection. “Do you mind… uh, explaining to me just why I have to come back from a successful mission, only to hear you’ve been gone for three hours?” a pause, Anthony couldn’t quite see Rhodey’s face in the dark, but his voice was certainly not pleased. “I was supposed to get a nice meal, a bath maybe – but no. Anthony Stark must be a smartass to a senior enchanter and get his ass chased all the way to the basements where he disappears. Very classy. They are ready to declare you an apostate.”

Heat rose to Anthony’s cheeks, some of it rage, the rest embarrassment “I… It wasn’t my fault!” he whispered, suddenly the hurt of the slap he received before, all but forgotten thanks to the intrigue of the room he spent the last few hours exploring came back, and it was ten times worse than before. “I was just showing him the mistake with his idiotic theory on lightning magic, and he decided to get so mad about it! Why am I the one who gets blamed when someone else makes the stupid mistakes?” the burn in his eyes turned to dampness, he didn’t mean to cry, or to shout at the Templar. He started to regret coming out of his hiding place at all.

“Anthony… Tony.” the Templar’s armor clanked as he took a few steps toward him, then knelt before him with his hands on the boy’s shoulder. “Tony… I… We’ve been through this.” His voice sounded unsure, and that tone continued throughout the conversation “Remember? We talked about it the last time. You are smart, you are too smart, sometimes.” He paused. “And people don’t… they don’t like being reminded that someone is better and smarter than they are. That’s just the way the world is.” He made another pause, his eyes refusing to meet the blue of Tony’s.

“I can’t just stop being smart. That’s just the way I am.” Tony muttered under his breath. Trying to catch Rhodey’s eyes while wiping tears away from his own.

“I guess not, but you could at least _try_ not to be an asshole about it.” Rhodey smiled at him, and Tony smiled back. “Not going to happen though, is it?” Tony nodded slightly, blinking the last tears away and hugged the Templar, the only person who cared for him in the entire world.

“You know they are still going to punish you, right?” Rhodey muttered as his hand found its way to the back of Tony’s neck, stroking down his back affectionately. “A month scrubbing floors at least. And you’ll be restrained to your quarters for a while. I might not be able to visit you.” He pulled Tony even closer when the boy said nothing, “But it could have been worse. you are so lucky I came back early, you know.”

“Stop boasting, Templar.” Tony didn’t leave the hug, and his voice was not as chilly as the words suggested it should be. Sometimes it was hard to remember how young the brilliant mage had been. Tony met his gaze and smiled again, a little sad smile as they always were.

“I’m ready, take me to face my fate… sir Rhodes.”


	2. Confessions of a teenage Mage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you find mistakes and inaccuracies and... generally things that make no sense for the canon.
> 
> WARNING: Teenage/underage sex mentioned/hinted. Tony is fifteen.

Tony didn’t like brutalizing books.

All in all, he preferred them whole. No ears or rips marring the pages of what book had passed his time during yet another useless but mandatory tutoring session, which everyone knew he didn’t really need. He didn’t mind scribbles and footnotes as long as they provided useful information.

Finding out someone ripped out a page from a book, well that would have made him completely freak out.

Which is why it felt the worst to do it himself.

Tony looked around dutifully as he folded the old, brittle page and slipped it into his pocket, there were few mages and even fewer Templars hanging around the studying hall, and his instructor was busy ordering around another apprentice and didn’t pay him much mind, counting on him to do his own studying.

Tony was done studying apprentice level magic theory when he was twelve. Half a year later he mastered the physical aspect of it as well. They knew that yet refused to let him have any advance material to study and insisted he practiced the same tedious exercises, the same fireball spell again and again. So boring.

Instead Tony read, he read a lot of books, clinging to any word of advanced magic he have yet to learn and stored it aside for when he had the opportunity to develop its theory further on his own.

He learned approximately twenty new spells a month this way, both theory and practical application. He might have even invented or reinvented a few spells on his own, but had no way to really check if that was true with no access to the more advanced material. Lately that advancement had been cut by a small margin however.

Tony had a new interest to study, and during the last two years he’d been trying to find out whatever he could about a monument that sat in the basement and accumulated dust for far too many years. In the last two years since he found the statue he didn’t manage to find much about it besides the fact that it was - without any doubt - magic. If not the figure it depicted in stone then the ice-cold crystals that enveloped it like a cage made of thorns, definitely.

The first clue of the statue’s origins didn’t even reference it in any way, not a mention was made of it at all. But something in that page managed to catch Tony’s eye – a picture of a woman, a beautiful and fierce woman drawn in coal and preserved within the book’s pages for hundreds of years and looked exactly like a drawing in the drawing book Tony found in that same room in the basement, a room abandoned and unknown to anyone but himself as it seemed.

He still had to confirm it was not merely a coincidental likeness, and since taking the entire book down there without facing scrutiny was going to be on the verge of impossible – as well as doing the opposite with the old, delicate drawing book that could crumble in his hands if he treated it too roughly. If he wished to compare the sketches, he had to rip out the page.

That reasoning was no comfort to him as he crossed the hall in determined and confident steps while secretly hoping the feeling of shame would not cause him to suddenly combust. He didn’t give a glance to the Templars, aware that his nervousness would probably show if he did. He was used to ignoring them anyway, and they were used to his snubbing. As long as they didn’t take offense he was fine. He continued his stride up until he got to a set of stairs leading down, his mind already recreating the path to follow. He changed it up every once in a while, taking longer or shorter paths depending on the time of day, the amount of Templars strolling about, and the time he had on his disposal. Today he chose a shorter path.

“Dummy.” He whispered once he was in to basement where light was scarce and fire was out as an option, too much risk of being discovered by the Templars. He wrinkled his nose disapprovingly when the wisp didn’t immediately showed, said the name once more and waited as the small light began to appear in the real world, it’s energy pulled from the fade with the slightest effort on Tony’s part, he had years of practice in that particular trick, the wisp was the first spirit he came into contact with, the first he summoned – completely by mistake, as it were, when he was new to the Circle, alone, a little scared of what was to come.

It became his closest companion during the first year, whistling and jumping around his head, speaking to him in thousands forgotten languages to comforting him when he missed home. Tony was rather fond of the spirit, even if their main interactions now days were in the form of piques and teasing on Tony’s part. The wisp was useless most of the time, and Tony did not let it forget it.

“You remember the route?” he asked and chuckled when the faint orb of light started jumping excitedly around his head, rambling in a tongue he could not understand as much as he tried. “Great, Dummy, good job. Please lead the way then.” The wisp immediately moved to the front and started floating in a steady yet quick pace to the room with the statue.

As tony guessed, the pictures did match. Whoever drawn that sketch in the book had drawn something of a legend – Warden Commander Margaret Carter, a rogue who had made her way to the highest of ranks within the order of the Grey wardens, a woman who led an elite force of Wardens during the fourth Blight and won many of the victories in that awful war, five hundred years ago.

Tony passed his fingers over the coal sketch on the coarse paper of the book he ruined, and turned to look at the statue, standing still, a mournful look on the figure’s expressive face. Was that person a hero as well? Is that why they built a monument for him?

When he first found the statue, Tony had not dared touching it. It was the most basic precaution – do not touch unidentified objects, especially magical ones. Do not go near unidentified objects, just leave the room and walk away if possible, there is no knowing what kind of awful things would happen to you if you go near such an object – will you immolate? Freeze to death in a mere second? And of course, the most likely scenario – be possessed by a demon, become an abomination and massacre everyone around? Near endless were the options of horrendous death by unidentified magical objects, most of them fiction to scare apprentices, as Tony learned quite early.

You cannot really study what you cannot go near. It was common sense.

And anyway – the statue itself was made of mere stone, the only thing magical was the crystals around it and while certainly they were menacing in their shape and probably freezing to the touch, Tony could not feel any particular connection to the fade from them. As it was – crystals possessed by demons were pretty unlikely.

He still refrained from touching them without wearing a set protective gloves and setting a minor barrier tightly around his body – carelessness was never rewarded - but the avoidance from two years ago was no longer a thing he attempted. The more he learned, the better his and his fellow mages and the entire world’s future would be. Tony was too smart to not do something, not leave his mark on the present to advance the better future he wanted to come sooner rather than later.

Tony found himself standing closer to the figure, looking him over in search for an inscription. It wasn’t the first time he did it, not the first time his eyes scanned the body of stone – sculpted perfectly, its anatomy impossible – between a human and a god, inaccurate as only a real body could be.

Believing the artist would neglect to leave some indication as to who he was on such a masterpiece was ludicrous; and yet, over the period of two years Tony has found no name scratched into the stone, no inscription or insignia and most surprisingly – no wear, tear, or other signs of imperfection.

For a sculpture aged at least five hundred years, it was in surprisingly good state. If he had to guess why that was Tony would probably have blamed the crystals, somehow mending and preserving the figure in its best state.

A useful quality, to be sure.

The blue-eyed teen passed a glove clad finger on the bridge of the figure’s nose, straight and perfect, not a scratch or a speck of skin out of place. His finger wondered to the cheek, and down to its lips, tracing and admiring the workmanship that created them, so smooth, so lifelike. It must have taken years, perhaps perfected with magic. What other way was there to make stone feel so much like actual skin in texture?

If the man the figure depicted was real… if he was alive… well. Tony was not innocent to the pleasures of beautiful bodies against him, even if Rhodey made a point of telling him whenever they were near each other that he was still too young to be curious about such things, let alone practice them – silly chantry boy that he was. Tony needed no one’s approval, and when the opportunity showed itself, he was going to indulge.

The mages in the circle did not let their scrutiny for him bother them when his body was involved. The Templars simply took what they wished, so why fight it at all? It was silly.

And if the one person he did want was going to stay unavailable, if he was going to keep… lecturing him about age and appropriate behavior and his ever repeating “I’m too old for you, Anthony.”, “You’re my charge, Tony, it’s wrong.” And the best one, of course – “It’s just a crush, it’ll be gone soon enough.”

Tony’s hand fell from the statue’s face to its torso and his eyes found the floor just before the sting of tears appeared in them, he heard the quiet buzzing and whistles of the wisp besides him, it was, as always, strangely comforting. And allowed Tony to feel like he wasn’t completely alone in the world.

“He doesn’t get it…” He whispered, to himself but also to the figure, “Rhodey’s always been there, he is the only one who… he… he is supposed to know me.” He stepped back from the statue, finding the perfectly shaped eyes in the downcast glare. Tragic, hurt. Tall enough that it was like it was looking right into his own eyes, it almost felt like it was listening and understanding him. Obviously impossible, as it was made of stone and not alive. Well, stone does not judge.

He swallowed hard, biting his lower lip. There was no one to really talk to in the Circle. Sure, there was Virginia Potts, the girl who had joined to the chantry as a sister last year. She sometimes provided a safe place for personal talk – it mostly ended with her preaching to him or reciting the Chant however, and as much as Tony liked the sound of her voice and adored her freckled face it could get a little annoying.

Rhodey used to listen to him ramble on and on about magic and the injustices of the Circle for long hours when he was younger, but now… now it seemed like they’ve grown apart. The Templar didn’t like finding Tony in the private quarters of the older mages, he didn’t like walking in on him in the apprentice quarters either – and when it became clear that the Mage would not stop he started to distance himself from him, sure – he still came to his rescue, made sure he never did anything that would warrant too severe a punishment, spoke in his favor to the knight commander when needed…

He was still his best… his only friend in the circle. And Tony? All he wanted was to have more than that.

Stone doesn’t judge, so he told it everything. Told it how Rhodey found him sleeping almost completely naked on the floor in a room not his own and knew exactly what he had done, knew too much. He kept silent, said nothing when Tony protested the manhandling as the older man redressed him and carried him back to his room, said nothing as he put Tony to bed and sat next to him, made him drink a potion while looking at him with his sad doe eyes and asked him why he did those things. About the way he blinked once, and another time, his jaw set and his brow furrowed in confusion when Tony told him - tried to tell him…

At that point Tony couldn’t handle it any longer, the wisp was now gone, blinked out of existence as Tony lost his own composure and started to actually cry, staining the floor with tears that would not stop flowing. The silence was heavy and overwhelming once the whispers of the fade disappeared along with the minor spirit, and only cut off as his words and crying disrupted it. The young mage found himself on his knees, his forehead resting against the large stone shield and his arms hugging his stomach as he tried not to retch. He had kept the words inside for so long, didn’t dare speak about it to anyone but Rhodey – and his response was to tell him his feelings would simply pass. Letting the words out again hurt, but also relieved a stress that burdened Tony’s shoulders for months.

As the initial panic following the words passed, Tony found himself talking once more, first in silent whispers while still sniffling a bit moving on from the subject swiftly to tell the figure of his instructors with their insufferable attitude, and then with a bit of enthusiasm inserted to his voice - about the spells he reinvented while sitting and pretending to listen to their continuous ramblings of things he already knew - at which part he found himself getting up to demonstrate, of course, because how often did he have the opportunity to show off his skill? Never mind that his audience was made of a rock, minor details.

The spell Tony chose to exhibit was one he was very proud of, derived from the stories of ancient Elves and the fearsome Arcane Warriors, using both their body and their mind to become the most terrifyingly strong beings on the battlefield. They did this by channeling magic to create powerful barriers, almost like armor, and summoning powerful weapons powered by magic. Fighting alongside the regular warriors rather than the sidelines like normal mages.

It wasn’t perfect yet, there wasn’t much information about the arcane warriors and Tony suspected the ancient Elves had a far superior understanding of magic than any modern mage – but then again, so did he. His theory was very well thought out - he already could create a barrier sturdier than steel but not much more than that. The barrier would drain his mana reserves within minutes – and in a battlefield that would normally mean a certain death. For a demonstration a few minutes were enough.

Tony smirked to himself as he summoned his armor, it was a spectacle to behold – red and gold aura shining brightly before settling around his body like the armor of an actual knight. It was the reason why he couldn’t very much practice the spell when other mages and Templars were around – the spell was way beyond his supposed skill level and they would probably accuse him of Maleficarum.

The only person he ever showed it to was Rhodey and only because he knew the Templar would find it amazing and fascinating, even if he would pretend not to encourage him. Rhodey knew his genius, and knew he would never meddle with blood magic or demons.

Well, not the physical application of them, the theory was rather interesting. He should really keep that to himself though.

Right now, the armor lightened up the room, coloring it red and gold as the lights reflected on the crystals and the stone walls in wonderful, delicate details. It warmed up the room a little, and the rush of magic seeped through it and caused elation in his mind that Tony didn’t usually feel while doing this, swirling through his veins and his mind.

Next up was summoning a weapon – that part was tricky, it would usually have drained him completely to even summon the armor… but now, for whatever reason, he didn’t feel the drain even a little bit, not fatigue nor soreness settled into his muscles as usually happened, it felt… felt like it should have felt. Complete, correct – a part of him.

A sigh escaped his mouth as the Mage opened his eyes, breathing in the dust peppered air and exhaling it slowly. The vein like pattern of red and gold reflected on the crystals caught his gaze and he trailed it for a few moments until suddenly – the reflection pulsed. It wasn’t a reflection at all.

With a startled stumble, Tony cut his connection to the fade. Dispelling the armor that blinked out of existence at once. A shudder passed through his entire body at the realization that he’d apparently tapped to what could only be the crystals strange magic, unintentionally sucked away at their seemingly endless power to feed his armor which could be either devastatingly bad if they were possessed or dangerous in any way or… remarkably useful. If it was possible… if those weird stones truly were an endless source of mana it couldsolve so many problems, it could… oh. He had to think of it further; the options were endless! Unlike his time, which he had lost track of.

He gave one last look to the statue – it looked as it always did, no change in its shape, the cluster of crystals still thorny and intimidating, and no remains to the veiny texture they bared when Tony summoned the armor. As normal as they ever been.

Complementing the scenario he had just went through, Tony left the room and walked slowly towards the exit of the basement, not bothering to summon Dummy for his light or company as all it would do would be distracting him, and he really needed to think now.

“Stark!” the voice greeted him the moment he emerged from the staircase to the dungeon, and he found himself face to face with an unknown, older Templar, “Anthony Stark, correct? Where have you been?” Tony blinked and looked at him, adjusting his expression to show his boredom with the man’s words. “Just went to read where it’s quiet and fell asleep there. I’m back now.” He said and turned with all the intention of abandoning the Templar behind him and actually going to rest and think, only to have a hand placed on his shoulder.

Tony hated when they did that.

The Templar put a bit more force to his grip and turned to boy around to look at him. He appraised him with cautious eyes for a long moment before letting go. His eyes showed clearly how much he didn’t actually believe him. “Under any other circumstances, I would have taken you straight up to the Knight Captain, brat.” He said with a dangerous tinge to his voice, “lucky for you, the first enchanter sent me to find you for another reason.” A pause, as if the Templar tried to sound dramatic on purpose. Tony held himself from rolling his eyes and asking him _what_ the reason was. The Templar scanned him up and down, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue.

“I don’t have the entire day, what is it?” Tony finally snapped, startling the Templar who then smirked at him.

“Why, Your Harrowing, of course.”

 

 


End file.
